Assorted Adventures and Miscellaneous Malarkey
by butalearner
Summary: The obligatory collection of fun little oneshots and story beginnings that have collected over the couple of years I've been writing.
1. Harry Potter and the Temporal Bacon

_Assorted Adventures and Miscellaneous Malarky_ is a group of rough oneshots and first chapters of unfinished stories that I'm probably not going to continue, shared here with the intent of sparking my fellow readers' and writers' imagination. As it says in my profile, feel free to use anything you find in these stories (or any of my other ones), subject to normal limitations with fanfiction.

The oneshot below was inspired by the fic of the almost same name (Harry Potter and the Temporal Beacon) by willyolioleo and a throwaway joke someone made about it. Any implied critique written below does not represent my view of the story (of which I have only read the first chapter thus far).

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><p><strong>Harry Potter and the Temporal Bacon<strong>

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><p>"Nothing would have happened, you know," a voice said into the formerly pristine quietude of the library.<p>

Harry Potter lifted his head from his arms and squinted at one of his two best friends: his partner in time. He mentally stabbed himself in the brain for thinking up such a stupid pun. "What?"

"You know, '_Hermione — what'll happen — if we don't get back inside before Dumbledore locks the door?_' The answer is nothing. Well, nothing paradoxical anyway."

"You didn't have to mimic my being out of breath," Harry grumbled, letting his head flop back down into his arms. In reality, though, he was thankful for the distraction from his brooding. Losing the chance to spend the summer with his godfather, losing the chance to spend time with his father's other best friend, losing the chance to bring his family's betrayer to justice...he couldn't bring himself to stop thinking about it all. For each of those opportunities lost, he could name at least a dozen mistakes he'd made. He and Hermione might have saved his godfather's life, but it never should have been necessary in the first place.

"Your question plagued my mind that night, and the next, and last night as well," Hermione said. Harry cracked an eye open and wondered how she could sit there looking for all the world as though an all-consuming string of thoughts like what he'd suffered through could be a good thing. "Well, not that _exact_ question...that nothing paradoxical would happen was obvious. Dumbledore would have just had to make some excuse for us. But it made me think about the usage of time turners, avoiding paradoxes, and time travel in general."

"Go on..."

"Well, based on my admittedly rudimentary understanding of physics...the idea of avoiding concurrent versions of ourselves reminded me of the principles of relational quantum mechanics that arose from the Copenhagen interpretation. I just read a preprint on it this year. Outside observers merely see a superposition of states, whereas if we observe ourselves, the system's eigenstate collapses. It's not clear what that means, except that it would be bad. And obviously the probability of accidentally observing yourself increases the further you travel back; that must be why time turners are restricted so heavily.

"So," she said forcefully, making Harry jump and try to pay attention again, "what if, when traveling through the time dimension, we simply maintain the collapsed eigenstate?"

Harry stared at Hermione, who looked back expectantly. "Er," he said once he realized she was waiting for him to answer, "how do we do that?"

Hermione's eyes lit up. "Excellent question! You see, time turners seem to apply the brute force method to time travel: the necklace holds open an Einstein-Rosen bridge in space time, and each turn expands the overall length, which in turn, forces the ones inside further back in time. I wonder if the wormhole becomes unstable beyond a certain length, and that's why it's limited to six hours." Hermione paused, apparently in thought, but Harry couldn't really process any more than that. Then she shook her head. "Anyway, that's a totally inelegant solution, for the aforementioned reasons. We can just use quantum entanglement!"

Once again Harry merely stared dumbly until he realized she was waiting for him again. "Okay, you're going to have to explain that one."

"Well done, Harry, I'm glad you kept up until then," Hermione said, giving him a broad smile. "You see, all we need to do is encode the state of our temporal lobe, which is in charge of storing new memories, onto a set of entangled particles, then anchor the other set in time using an enchantment similar to the one placed on time turners. Then we simply plan to periodically re-encode our current state in the future. That way, as soon as we activate the enchantment, we can immediately decode and transfer the state back to our temporal lobe, we get all of our future memories instantaneously!"

"That sounds brilliant," Harry said, not entirely able to match her enthusiasm since he was thoroughly lost. "When can we try it?"

"I've been studying spell creation, and I think I can do it right now. I should be able to use any object as a starting point, and I should be able to transfer to it and right back right away."

"Wait," Harry said. Some of her explanation started to get through to him. "What if you just cast the spell on my temporal lobe directly, that way I can just have my memories updated immediately?"

Hermione blinked. "That's brilliant!"

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><p>Headmaster Dumbledore unhurriedly strolled the hallowed halls of Hogwarts, mentally reviewing his partially successful manipulation of time. Planning such a coup required incredible forethought and prescience, especially with two time travelers having to avoid paradoxes and introducing cascading uncertainties. Still, it went reasonably well, despite the unexpected negligence of Remus and unfortunate and still bitter rivalry between Sirius and Severus.<p>

He passed the Great Hall, the smells and sounds reminding him that, no matter how dire circumstances seem to be for one man, time marches inexorably on, and the rest of the world will easily leave that man behind. Too much needed to be done, both in the short term and in the long term. The long term activities could wait until he had a clearer head, a sharper mind to turn to the task of foiling Voldemort's return, exonerating Sirius, steering the wizarding world to a brighter, more equitable future. Harry seemed to be central to all of those, and Albus only hoped he would be up to the task.

Anyway, one step at a time. Oversee the Dementors' ejection from the grounds. Assist his staff in closing out the year and preparing to send the students home. Contact Sirius and emphasize the importance of staying hidden and regaining his health. Monitor the gossip at the Ministry, ensure Harry's name stays out of suspicion for helping both Buckbeak and Sirius to escape execution.

He passed the library then and considered dropping in to see if Irma needed any assistance-he did just count assisting his staff as one of his priorities, after all. But then, Irma was one of the few who rarely needed help with such a task. The students tended to be afraid of her well enough to avoid mistreating any of her books, let along misplacing them. Why, even he'd gotten an earful when he accidentally dropped a lemon sherbet from his mouth onto an open book, causing two pages to stick together. He chuckled at the thought and turned away, intent on finding another task to occupy him.

Suddenly he stopped, turned back and sniffed the air, identifying a familiar, delicious, smoky smell. "Mmm, bacon," he said. But he was confused. He was a long way from the Great Hall and the House Elves' breakfast, and Irma would never allow such a thing in the library, anyway.

Then all the blood drained from his face. "No...it can't be..."

He rushed to the door, but it was too late. A heart-rending scream emanated from the library.

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><p><strong>AN:**

The entirety of my quantum mechanics knowledge comes from a few minutes on Wikipedia. Also, possible anachronism alert: the journal article about relational quantum mechanics came out in 1994, but I'm not sure when. It's possible the term didn't exist at the end of their third year.


	2. Harry Potter and the Nutter Games

_Assorted Adventures and Miscellaneous Malarky_ is a group of rough oneshots and first chapters of unfinished stories that I'm probably not going to continue, shared here with the intent of sparking my fellow readers' and writers' imagination. As it says in my profile, feel free to use anything you find in these stories (or any of my other ones), subject to normal limitations with fanfiction.

The snippet below was born from a simple writing prompt: Hogwarts Hunger Games. The first and most obvious question in such a scenario is why the headmaster would allow such a thing, and the most obvious answer is: he would if Tom Riddle were headmaster. But that's too serious, so I went with the slightly less obvious answer: BatshitInsane!Dumbledore.

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><p><strong>Harry Potter and the Nutter Games<strong>

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><p>"No, no, no, Dolores, that simply won't do at all."<p>

Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge sat up straighter in indignation and started to reply when she was cut off once again by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

"Why injure your students yourself when you can simply have them injure each other?"

Whatever she expected to hear, that was not it. Dumbledore started cackling madly. "I'm sorry, Albus?" She kept her voice high and sweet, as she always did when she was hiding her emotions. Between the confusion, fear, and excitement, she wouldn't know how to make her voice come out any other way.

"It's quite simple: have them practice the Severing Charm. The depth of the cut is controllable, you see, so have them 'practice' on each other until they can control it. Observe." He whipped his wand in an oval aimed directly her, and she didn't have time to move. The front of her robes fell away to reveal two perfectly sculpted breasts with small, round nipples as pink as her now-ruined cardigan.

With a squeal of embarrassment she covered herself. "Why, I never..."

"My, my, Dolores," Dumbledore said with surprise, "if I were about sixty years younger and fancied humans, I would...well, no matter. I can see that, unlike your predecessors, you are quite inadequate to the task of placing my students in mortal peril. I shall have to devise something of my own..."

He fell silent, and Dolores stared nervously for several minutes, not daring to cover herself. Then he started snoring. "Headm—?"

He jerked awake. "—and a harem of turtles! Ha ha! Anyway, as I was saying, now there is the matter of your punishment..."

"What?" Her voice remained high but dropped the honey. "But you just—"

"Oh please, you do nothing for me like that," he cut her off again, waving his wand at her lazily. The material he'd cut away stitched itself back together, and then she felt herself snap up out of the chair.

"What—" she began, but this time she was cut off by her jaw seizing and her face flattening. She fought the transfiguration, but the headmaster's magical ability was more than enough to overcome both her own magic and her body's natural resistance to the magic forcibly reshaping it. It took her a moment to realize that, strangely, she could still move her arm, but it felt like it had an infinite number of joints in it. With some trepidation she moved what used to be her hand up so she could see it, and it had transformed into some kind of metallic contraption with a handle and a spout.

"Fascinating things, Muggle petrol pumps," Dumbledore said, caressing the shoulder-height panel in a way that would have made Umbridge quiver if she could. "Ah, but perhaps you don't know how they work. You see, these pumps are usually connected to large reservoirs of petrol, which fuels their automobiles for days on end. They can travel as fast as brooms, though of course they remain on the ground. But I digress. Each automobile has its own reservoir—much smaller of course—and they use that to fill it. Here, allow me."

Umbridge looked on in confusion as the headmaster turned away and bent over, then slowly transformed into a bright yellow Muggle auto with a round, silver VW logo right in the center of what she assumed was the rear. Suddenly the silver disk rotated to the side to reveal a small silver hole that made her scream in terror. Of course, no sound escaped, so with immense relief she heard the headmaster's door creak open.

Her relief was short-lived, however, as she heard an exasperated sigh from the entirely unpleasant Potions professor, Severus Snape. "Headmaster, I must insist you remember to lock the door. It wouldn't do to have another student walk in and create a Muggle cartoon about you again." To Umbridge's horror, the door creaked open as Snape went to leave. "Oh," he added in a wry voice just before stepping out, "do go on, Madam Undersecretary, he won't return your form until you've finished." Then the door shut and audibly locked. The silent scream lasted for hours.

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><p>The headmaster tapped his glass at the Halloween feast, and one particular fifth year Gryffindor cringed even more than the rest of the student body. "May I have your attention, please," Dumbledore said, his voice echoing clearly around the Great Hall. He smiled at their reactions; he'd been disappointed in the lack of injuries from the new Defense curriculum, so he needed a fresh hardship to further his goals. "As you all know, the Triwizard Tournament last year was a tremendous success in promoting international relations and showcasing the talents of our finest students. In light of this success, I would like to announce the start of the Quadhouse Tournament! The Quadhouse Tournament is a similar tournament as last year, only this time it shall be among the Hogwarts Houses."<p>

Whispers exploded all over, some excited, some terrified, in all nearly drowning out the bang of the same fifth year Gryffindor's forehead against the table.

"Yes, yes, your beloved professors and I are looking forward to it just as keenly as you," the headmaster continued, smiling genially and ignoring the blazing glares from more than one spot at the head table. "Unlike last year, to ensure we give everyone the chance to participate, we shall be randomly selecting a boy and a girl from each House, and each year shall have their own competition, one after the other. In a random draw, we've chosen fifth year to begin the festivities."

At this he continued to ignore continued bangs of a forehead against the table. Instead, he conjured a tall, ornate vase on the floor beside him. He waved his wand once again and conjured a small square of parchment, making it appear to erupt from the vase in much the same way that the names appeared out of the Goblet of Fire the previous year, when it had chosen the Champions from each school.

"For Gryffindor," Dumbledore announced dramatically before opening the parchment.

His action was interrupted by one particular Gryffindor student standing up with a loud sigh.

Dumbledore's eyebrows jumped theatrically. "Why are you standing, Mr. Potter? This doesn't have your name on it."

"What?" Harry asked, surprise evident in his voice. "It...it doesn't?"

The headmaster couldn't hold it in anymore, but he at least turned his mad cackle into more of a jolly chuckle. "Just kidding, of course it does! Congratulations! Come, Mr. Potter, stand up here if you please."

That struck the boy dumb and left his mouth agape, but he eventually moved thanks to the efforts of the angry-looking redhead sitting next to him. Potter dejectedly made his way to the front, past the cheers of most of his Housemates. Dumbledore suppressed a grin at how easy it was to spark jealousy between those two. Then he waved his wand, conjuring another sheet of parchment.

_Time for step two_. "Hermione Granger! Congratulations!"

"And for Hufflepuff, Zacharias Smith!"

"Hannah Abbott!"

"For Ravenclaw, Michael Corner!"

"Mandy Brocklehurst!"

"For Slytherin, Draco Malfoy!"

"Daphne Greengrass!"

"Well done, students," the headmaster intoned once the applause had died down, "well done, indeed." He was sure they wondered what exactly they did to earn those positions. At least, the smarter ones probably wondered. In reality they were chosen solely for their dislike of the chosen Gryffindors and their ability to do something about it. "I'm sure you're all wondering what we have in store for our wonderful contestants," he said, enjoying the enraptured gazes of the students. He waved his wand at the curtain over the head table, which promptly turned into an enormous map of the Hogwarts grounds, including a significant portion of the Forbidden Forest. It surrounded Hogwarts on almost all sides, save in the direction of both the nearest town of Hogsmeade and the Great Lake directly between the town and Hogwarts. And even then, the forest seemed to encroach on the opening, like a tidal wave about to close the gap.

"Each competitor will be transported to a random location in the Forest," he began, waving his wand to place eight dots—two each of red, yellow, blue, and green—within the forest. He heard several gasp at the depth at which he placed the dots. "Yes, as you see, there is no guarantee you will end up near your Housemate. Small packs of supplies will also be scattered throughout the forest. Your task, competitors, is to converge upon the acromantula den here, and return with a viable egg by any means possible. Now, for an impromptu taste of what's to come, why don't each of you demonstrate a special ability? Something you believe none of the others can match."

None of them said anything. Most of them cast surreptitious glances at the others, except for Greengrass. She just scratched her perfectly-coiffed, blonde head a moment before her bright blue eyes lit up. "I can fit an entire banana in my mouth!" She rushed over to the Slytherin table, grabbed and peeled a big, thick banana, and promptly deep-throated the entire length of it. Then she pulled it back out and struck a victory pose, oblivious to the sounds of approximately half of the male population choking on their saliva and urgently adjusting their trousers.

"Right, Ms. Greengrass, very good," Dumbledore said, wondering why such a simple act garnered such a reaction. She didn't even swallow, after all, and what was the point of putting a banana in one's mouth if not to eat it? It seemed terribly inefficient to him. "Now then, who would like to go next?"

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><p><strong>AN:**

You can imagine why I stopped writing, because I have no words.


	3. I Love Epidurals

_Assorted Adventures and Miscellaneous Malarky_ is a group of rough oneshots and first chapters of unfinished stories that I'm probably not going to continue, shared here with the intent of sparking my fellow readers' and writers' imaginations. As it says in my profile, feel free to use anything you find in these stories (or any of my other ones), subject to normal limitations with fanfiction.

Once upon a time, I became annoyed with how childbirth is portrayed in fiction. Notice I don't say fanfiction, because general fiction is often just as bad in this regard. It might be because childbirth is kind of messy in addition to being painful, and people don't want to show what it's really like. Or, as I believe I've encountered here, the authors genuinely don't know what birth is like.

In any case, the oneshot below was my attempt at showing an accurate birth, based heavily on the births of my own children.

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><p><strong>I Love Epidurals<strong>

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><p>"I really don't care how much you dislike Muggle hospitals," Dr. Hermione Granger said through gritted teeth. She paused in her tapping away at the keyboard on her magic-hardened laptop to hold her bulging stomach in pain. "And I don't care how fancy they claim St. Mungo's Birthing Ward is; they still do it the old-fashioned way. If you think I'm birthing our baby without an epidural, you're mad."<p>

"Are you sure there's not a spell or Potion—?"

She scowled at him.

"—right." Harry Potter, former Senior Auror and soon-to-be stay-at-home dad, smiled nervously at his stubborn wife of seven years. He didn't think he'd be able to convince her, but he could be just as stubborn when he wanted. Of course, he would ultimately defer to his wife's judgment, seeing as she had completed her medical training at Oxford University, or some Muggle hospital affiliated with them, anyway. Harry never could keep all the rules and terms straight. Internships, house officers, residencies, registrars...whatever it was, she finished, she could legally start her own practice. So, for the past year and a half she had sought out parents of Muggleborns in Hogwarts and offered to see them and their children so they didn't have to worry about the Statute of Secrecy when it came to their child's well-being...not to mention the fact that, unlike magical Healers, Dr. Granger billed NHS for her services and didn't require galleons.

Of course, none of that relieved Harry's terror at the prospect of becoming a father.

"Besides, this way my parents can visit in my post-partum room," she said, pushing herself up from the leather swivel chair in her home office with her left hand while gingerly holding her belly with her right. Harry quickly helped her up, and couldn't help but admire her body...not that he had a pregnancy fetish or anything, it just agreed with Hermione very much. Her face had gained a healthy plumpness, a refreshing change from the gaunt look all those hours of Muggle training gave her. And while she kept fit on a strict regimen of diet and exercise specifically for pregnant women, another part of her body gained a lot of that healthy plumpness. Harry had never really considered himself a breast man, but how could he not enjoy the fact that Hermione bumped up two cup sizes? "Now," she said, making him divert his gaze from her chest, "come into the bathroom and smell my underwear."

"...wait, what?"

"Honestly, Harry, didn't you read the books I gave you?" She paused and gripped his hand roughly. "I've been having contractions four minutes apart..."

"Are you sure they aren't Braxton-Hicks?"

She squeezed his hand even harder. "Of course I'm sure!"

"But you're not even thirty-eight weeks!"

"There isn't a magic switch that flips at forty weeks, you know. When the baby's ready, he'll come."

Still reeling with the frantic worry and sudden feeling of helplessness, Harry managed to ask, "so why do I have to smell your underwear, again?"

"I had bloody show this morning and my contractions are heavier this morning, so I want to know if I'm leaking amniotic fluid."

Not even the barest hint of lust can survive such a casual discussion of pregnancy-related bodily fluids. "...okay. Er...isn't that what it means when your water breaks?"

"Yes," she said as he helped her into the bathroom. "If there's just a small tear in the amniotic sac it could leak out instead of gushing. Cervical mucus thins out at the end of pregnancy, so it could just be that. Help me get my underwear off."

How she could keep her teaching voice while grimacing and groaning was beyond Harry, but he obliged, thinking this had to be the most unsexy undressing he'd ever done. He tried not to look at the pinkish, mucus-like stuff in her pantyliner. "Now what?"

"Smell it." He must have made a face, because she huffed and grabbed her panties from him and stuck it up to her nose. Then she hunched over and growled, once again holding her stomach. "I...can't tell. Does it smell sweet to you?"

Steeling himself, he held the panties up to his nose, but not too close. It smelled like...nothing. He tried bringing it closer, but he was afraid to get that...stuff on him. "I can't tell either," he admitted.

She muttered a string of curses under her breath, surprising him with her ferocity. "Get my hospital bag, we're going."

Minutes later her car ate up the distance to the hospital, Hermione reclined in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash. Harry had been reacquainting himself with driving just for this occasion - he'd learned at Hermione's request some time ago, but he had little occasion to drive.

Once again her legs tensed up and she gripped the handle above the window. "Can't you go any faster," she ground out between gritted teeth.

"I'm trying, sweetheart, I'm trying," he said, even though he wasn't. He'd already exceeded his comfort zone in this level of traffic, so going faster wasn't an option. Thankfully the traffic wasn't too heavy this early in the morning.

"Don't give me that 'sweetheart' nonsense, just drive!"

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><p>"Three-and-a-half centimeters? That's it?" Hermione looked like someone just stole her favorite book. "How effaced?"<p>

Harry knitted his brows in concern and the Labor and Delivery nurse with her hand in his wife's vagina appeared to poke around some more. "About 80% I would say, and it seems like the amniotic sac is in tact as well."

"That's not much further along than I was two days ago," Hermione said with a little grimace when the nurse pulled her hand out and binned her latex glove.

"On a scale of one to ten, with one being a minor ache and ten being the worst pain you've ever experienced in your life, how would you rate your contractions?"

That wiped the nearly constant grimace off Hermione's face. Harry knew she had experienced the Cruciatus several times courtesy of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Six, maybe seven," she said.

"It's okay, Dr. Granger, why don't you go ahead and take a walk around for an hour or so?" The Labor and Delivery nurse suggested with a sympathetic look. "If you're progressing we'll admit you."

Hermione's lips tightened and she nodded. Without a word, Harry helped her up and let her lead the way. Some minutes later, the grip on his hand tightened. "Are you okay?" He asked, thinking more about the conversation with the nurse instead of her current pain.

She nodded. "Just puts it in perspective, doesn't it? This," she said, caressing her belly as another contraction hit, "is nothing compared to _that_, and it's for an infinitely better reason."

Harry squeezed his wife into his side. He didn't care how often she was hit with the _Cruciatus_, he didn't like seeing her in any pain. "So...you wanna head to St. Mungo's?"

Hermione fixed him with a flat look. "Just because I can take the pain doesn't mean I welcome it. I didn't know you were so anxious to make me feel that way. You realize women usually tear down there?"

His eyes widened in horror and he subconsciously covered himself in protection against the imagined pain in his groin.

"Exactly," she said, though the briefly triumphant look didn't last long.

"Whatever's best for you, Hermione," Harry said quietly. "That's what I want, too."

She smiled and leaned into him. "And the baby?"

He didn't speak right away, trying to think of the best way to say it. One of the books she'd gotten him told him it was normal, so she probably knew as well, but it still made him nervous. "I have no doubt I'm going to love him, but I don't have the bond with him that you do, not yet." He quickly turned to face her to make sure she hadn't angered her. She wasn't angry, and he looked deeply into her eyes. "It's just...you're the most important person in the world to me right now. No matter who delivers our baby, I just want you to be safe."

Her eyes softened, but another contraction hit and the sweet moment was over. "Come on, let's keep going."

Harry didn't care that she appeared to already forget the moment. Her unwavering determination saved his life countless times, and after years of peace, seeing it again made his heart swell.

"Just about...four centimeters," the nurse with her long, spindly fingers in his wife's vagina said. "Maybe 85% effaced."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, then tensed over another contraction.

"We are going to go ahead and admit you, and we can schedule an epi—"

"Yes, do that now, please," Hermione cut in.

"Of course, we'll have you in Labor and Delivery in just a moment, Dr. Granger."

They wheeled her from triage to her delivery room, where the two delivery room nurses greeted them and exchanged information with the triage nurse.

An ultrasound nurse spread a thick layer of gel on her bulging, roiling stomach, then placed what they, amusingly enough, referred to as a wand on her belly. Harry saw a screen full of static, like he was staring at an empty channel on the telly.

"Well, the baby is facing upward, so well have to get him to turn," she said.

"At least he's not breach, right?" Harry asked. He was proud of the fact that he didn't say bum-first.

Neither one answered. Instead, the nurse started poking Hermione in the stomach with the ultrasound wand. In reply, the baby kicked Hermione in the spine.

"Okay, we'll try to get him turned over later," the nurse said over the pregnant woman's muttered obscenities.

"Epi?" Hermione managed to grit out.

"On his way."

Naturally, it took a half-hour for the anesthesiologist to show up. "I'm just going to have you sit up and sort of hunch your shoulders forward, that's it."

The sight of his wife's bare back normally elicited some sort of reaction from Harry, but the giant bloody needle the anesthesiologist just unpacked sort of overrode that. "Um, you're going to..."

"Yes, this will slide right between her vertebrae, and insert this flexible tube into your wife's spinal column." Harry fought a bout of nausea as the man twirled his fingers around what appeared to be a black and white metallic string. "Then we hook it up to this drip, which will numb her midsection enough to allow the contractions to do their work. The lack of distress in the mother makes for a lack of stress in the baby, and with luck you'll have a nice, smooth delivery."

"Any time now," Hermione said through clenched teeth.

"Of course," the man said, placing his left hand on her shoulder while he lined up a giant bloody needle in his right. "A lot of pressure," he warned.

_Is that what they call it, _Harry thought as he watched the man he'd never met stab his wife with a giant bloody needle.

"And set." He quickly unstabbed Harry's wife with a giant bloody needle and taped the tube down her back. Within moments he had the drip machine hooked up, squeaking out tiny drops in the little tube thing below it. "You might feel a spot of burning—"

"I do."

"—but it'll go away in ten seconds."

Harry saw the very moment it happened. Hermione's head lolled back and she sighed like she just had a particularly satisfying pregnant woman pee. The anesthesiologist helped her slowly lie down, and checked some dials on the drip machine. "Looks good."

"Thank you, doctor," she said in that tone of voice she usually saves for expressing her love for her husband.

"You're welcome. Now, we don't want to deaden the nerves too much, because you need some cues to push when the time comes. However, if the pain becomes too much, you may press this button once every ten minutes. If you have any problems, call for your nurse and she can reach me. Best of luck to you both."

"Mmm," Hermione said sleepily as the man made his way out.

"You're doing great, Dr. Granger," the nurse said, once again lubing up her hand. "Five centimeters." She then pulled out yet another long, pointy tube with which to stab his wife. This was getting tiresome. "Now that you're comfortable, we're going to go ahead and break your water for you. That should help things along."

"I'm just going to turn the lights down for a while," the nurse said. "Get some rest and feel free to sleep, I'll be back in thirty minutes or so to check on you."

"Mmm," Hermione said sleepily, and the sound made Harry yawn.

They fell asleep moments later.

* * *

><p>"Hmm?" Hermione asked sleepily. Harry sat up from the horridly uncomfortable bench and rubbed his eyes.<p>

"I said I can see your baby's head," the nurse said, pressing a button to call in the attending pediatrician. "Station zero...make that station one, yeah, you're about to have a baby."

"What?" Harry said, all grogginess instantly erased. He jumped up and rushed over to his wife.

"We're about to have a baby," she said, still sleepily smiling at him.

"Um, shouldn't you be in pain right now?"

She giggled. "I love epidurals."

In yet another example of Things Harry Never Thought He'd See In Either World, the nurse appeared to slather lube all over his wife's vagina. Curious but about as far from aroused as humanly possible, he risked a closer look to verify.

And immediately regretted it. Hermione's lady parts were large and angry and purplish...kind of like...an elephant. Yeah, an elephant. Sure enough, another clear blob of lube made its way in there, and the nurse ran her fingers around the edge, helping to stretch it out as she went. "How do you feel?"

Hermione yawned. "A little tired still, but..."

"I mean, is it starting to hurt down here? Any pressure?"

"Oh, well, yes, a bit of pressure, I guess."

Harry looked at the little squiggly line printouts at that, and noticed her contractions were pretty much off the charts now. Considering how much pain she appeared to be in when the line was half as high... "Wow, epidurals are kind of awesome."

The doctor and two other nurses came in then, asking the same questions, laying down lots of sheets of blue, paperish cloths, and slopping on another liter or two of lube.

"Baby is face down at station two, just a little farther now," the doctor said. "We're going to lower the epi a bit; we don't want you in pain, but you'll also need to be able to feel your legs to push."

Hermione giggled again. "I suppose so."

"Now, Mr. Potter, if you could help us set these up here," the original nurse said, extending the stirrups from the side of the bed. Harry placed Hermione's leg in it, but it apparently required several more adjustments, though Harry couldn't even tell what was different in her leg positioning. One of the nurses scooted Hermione down a bit, sliding one end of a huge plastic bag under her body.

"Okay," the doctor said, "we're going to wait until your next contraction hits, and then we're going to have you push. The epi probably hasn't worn off yet, so it may feel a little strange. But the best way to explain it is: bear down like you're trying to poop."

Hermione burst out in giggles again, which made Harry giggle a little bit, too. He didn't think she ever laughed at anything so crass; she'd scolded him and Ron often enough. He was so going to hold that over her head.

Six adults turned their heads to the squiggly line machine, waiting for the little LED number on the front to go up above fifty or so.

"Okay, and _push_," the doctor said, reaching in to help stretch the birth canal. "Good. Station three. Deep breath...and _push_...good." Harry tried not to look at the bodily functions that escaped her when she pushed that time. She couldn't feel anything down there anyway, so he could hardly blame her. One of the nurses spirited away the huge plastic bag and the other replaced it in mere moments.

That was nice of them; he wouldn't have to hold his breath for very long.

"And rest for a moment," the doctor said as the contraction ended. "Well, starting to feel it yet?"

"I think I know why they call it the Ring of Fire, now," Hermione said. "But let me just say once again, I love epidurals."

The doctor chuckled. "It does make everything much easier on my end. By the way, I can see lots of dark hair in here, you wanna see?"

Harry didn't answer verbally. It sounded gross, but he looked anyway. It looked like a ball the size of a snitch with fine, wet hairs. That was the baby's _head_? It was so tiny!

"A baby's skull is very elongated and cone-shaped in the birth canal," Hermione said, guessing the direction of his thoughts.

He just nodded, but inwardly he still thought it looked physically impossible.

"Contractions picking back up, ready?" The nurses got back in position, the one on the opposite side of the bed placing her hand on Hermione's leg to help her bear down. Harry did the same. "And _push_...wow, you've really got this down! Deep breath, and _push_." The doctors hand went in this time. "Baby's crowning! Deep breath, and _push_! Good! One more! And _push_!"

Hermione bore down harder than before, and several things happened at once. Reddish, clearish, and yellowish liquid gushed out, the baby's head slid out, followed immediately by his shoulders and the rest of his body. Lots more reddish liquid came out, and Hermione's belly actually visibly deflated. As if in slow motion, Harry watched the baby's eyes squish together, the biggest, saddest, cutest frown form on the baby's tiny mouth, which then opened and vomited out more of the clearish liquid. The baby gurgled painfully for a moment until the doctor jammed a bulb syringe down its throat and cleared it.

Finally, the baby cried, the most pathetic sound he'd ever heard. The nurses quickly wiped him down and placed him on Hermione's now-bare chest for skin-to-skin contact. Harry's heart melted when the baby's bottom lip quivered between cries, and the next one was far quieter than the last. He lightly placed his hand on the baby's head, which felt smooth as silk, and he couldn't resist the overwhelming urge to lean over to kiss it. It smelled so sweet, he didn't want to pull away. His tiny little legs and arms moved haphazardly, exercising his ability to move freely for the first time.

"Mommy's here," he heard Hermione coo quietly and soothingly, despite the tears streaming down her face. "Mommy's here, sweetheart."

Every bit of terror over Hermione giving birth and every bit of anxiety over being a father just washed away then, and Harry couldn't stop his own tears from falling.

* * *

><p>AN:

Braxton-Hicks contractions are pre-labor contractions that are thought to prepare the mother-to-be's body for birth. Not all women get them, so they aren't really necessary for childbirth, but some women get them so bad that they think they're in labor.

I am not exaggerating the amount of lube or bodily fluids involved. In fact, there's more, since I didn't mention the placenta. Sorry to disappoint.


	4. Harry Potter, Ashikabi

_Assorted Adventures and Miscellaneous Malarky_ is a group of rough oneshots and first chapters of unfinished stories that I'm probably not going to continue, shared here with the intent of sparking my fellow readers' and writers' imaginations. As it says in my profile, feel free to use anything you find in these stories (or any of my other ones), subject to normal limitations with fanfiction.

I know I had grand plans for this story several months ago, but my notes are pretty sparse so I'm sure I've long since forgotten most of them by now. I'm posting this here because I probably won't continue it any time soon, even though I still think this could be a fun story to write with a pretty solid first chapter. I hadn't thought up a name for it yet, because I figured I'd do that once I was much further in. Well, you know how that goes.

It's the first day of NaNoWriMo so I should be working on that right now, but instead I'm updating this to keep my schedule. No promises that I'll continue posting something every weekend, as I have the last ten or so, but I'll try not to disappoint you, you two or three fans of mine.

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><p><strong>Harry Potter, Ashikabi<strong>

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><p>"So, <em>why<em> are we looking for Shambhala all the way on the eastern shore of Japan, again?"

Harry Potter spoke the question aloud, even though he stood alone atop a fancy new high-rise apartment complex in some section of Tokyo…Shinra something or other. He couldn't remember. In either case he was not about to learn the names of all the boroughs, or wards, whatever they were called here. He couldn't even name the ones in London anymore, and he'd lived there for almost sixteen years.

_Need I remind you how utterly worthless it was to visit so many Indian enclaves over the past two years?_ The voice in Harry's head asked with no small amount of annoyance, almost as it had back when they'd first arrived in Magical Varanasi, the oldest city in India. They had had this argument so many times that, by the time they'd zigged and zagged their way to the relatively new but populous Magical Bombay (Harry had only made the mistake of calling it "Magical Mumbai" once), the captive fragment of a soul once known as Tom Riddle refused to even speak. Now that they'd traveled to his first choice, though, Tom had perked up. Well, he had returned to his normal temperament, at least. He would hold Harry's mistake over his head for years to come.

_I don't think it was entirely worthless,_ Harry replied internally, following up his claim by bringing a string of deliciously indecent memories to the forefront of his mind. A nonverbal, abstract, and only half-serious promise of pain and death emanated from his scar. Tom's pseudo-homicidal anger aside, true tantric yoga—that is, the version that involved directing magic internally to enhance flexibility, strength, and endurance—made the trip more than worth it. No matter how often Tom insisted that all Harry needed was impeccable aim and timing with the Cruciatus and Killing Curses, making sure hostile wizards couldn't hit him or hurt him was far more important.

That was why Tom Riddle only existed as an extra-dimensional neural construct linked to Harry's scar, running at merely thirty times pi percent operating capacity thanks to Dumbledore's destruction of the Gaunt family ring. Tom had tried visually presenting the arithmantic explanation behind that number once, but Harry asked him never to do it again, on account of the complete lack of alcohol-induced fun preceding such a vicious hangover. Harry suddenly had to squint his eyes against the excessive nighttime illumination of Greater Tokyo; Tom's promise was now perhaps three-quarters serious.

_Just keep your eyes open._

"Okay, okay," Harry said aloud, turning his attention outward. Upon reaching Tokyo International, they had quickly identified this ward as the most likely place of interest due to the multitude of supposed accidents and unexplained weather phenomena around the city. There were definitely a group of wizards up to no good around here, and it wasn't just a bunch of mindless thugs, like the Death Eaters were after their leader fell. The explosive growth of the pharmaceutical conglomerate whose headquarters dominated the skyline, Mid Bio Informatics, positively reeked of magical manipulation.

Thus Harry stood atop an apartment complex meant to house MBI employees, looking out over the city, waiting for some gas line explosions or clear-sky lightning strikes or sudden, unnatural fogs or…

Harry did a double take.

Or giant bloody jungles in the middle of a metropolitan area.

Harry whistled. _Did Neville move here while I wasn't looking?_

Tom gave the equivalent of a scoff. _Why does everybody vastly overestimate that fool's Herbology skills? Pomona was splicing non-venomous aconite for beginner-level potions by the time she was a Fourth Year. Longbottom just focused on that niche so he wouldn't feel useless compared to the rest of you._

_That's not all he's—_ Harry started to argue, but he was cut off by an explosion just outside the mass of unnaturally-placed trees. Within moments a Disillusioned Harry sped toward the explosion on a custom, matte black Firebolt X, messy hair whipping in the wind. He flew directly toward the explosion, but the distance was so great, he could only approximate where it had actually happened. In fact, he had actually underestimated the size of the trees, which threw off his estimate even further.

As if in response to his concern, a smaller explosion went off almost right where he was headed. With a burst of speed, he came upon three…wizards and witches? Confused at what he was seeing, he carefully drew closer. _Huh, that_ is _a woman with a massive scythe, and I don't see any wheat around here._

Tom did not divert any portion of his furiously churning mind to reply.

The scythe-wielding woman, who looked far too thin and delicate to effectively wield such a thing, wore a bizarre black and white short dress with puffy sleeves and long black stockings. It must have been a trick of the light, but her long, flowing hair appeared to have a greenish tint. And yet, she looked perhaps the most normal among the three of them. Next to her stood a rather well-endowed woman showing off ample cleavage above a black and white outfit that Harry had no name for, held up by thick chains that looped around her neck. Her light, cropped hair laid messily upon her head, not unlike his own. The third, simply enough, looked like a stereotypical ninja, except for some reason the black clothing did not cover the bright white hair. One hand held aloft an obviously magical flame; Harry could see no wand, but the relative brightness of the flame there would hide it from his view anyway.

Taking in their appearances took less than a second, and Harry continued downward, trying to hear more than just snatches of conversation. Hopefully their dialect did not differ from modern Japanese too much so Harry's translation spell could do its work.

"—occupied, would you?" The scythe-wielding woman spoke, then suddenly launched herself in the air far higher and faster than Harry expected. He quickly swerved the broom out of the way, but the woman's long hair brushed up against his hand. Like lightning, the woman twisted in the air and, in a blur, swung the massive scythe right through the spot his broom handle had been a moment earlier. Harry had moved it out of the way in time, so the woman spun away toward the trees where she'd initially jumped. Her eyes locked on Harry, or at least the spot Harry had been, but when she landed, she didn't move.

"Yomi?" The other woman asked.

_Was that a name?_ Harry hoped so. Yeah, he was going to go with that.

The woman didn't answer for a moment, then, "it was nothing, Akitsu. Continue." Then Yomi disappeared.

Akitsu watched the forest through which Yomi had disappeared, then slowly turned back to the ninja. "My master commands you to stop, and so I obey. I will not be thrown away again."

Harry barely had time to frown before spikes of ice erupted from the ground and surrounded the ninja. He got the sense that Akitsu and Yomi should probably be stopped, but Akitsu's words combined with the chains around her neck seemed to hint that she was a slave of some sort. Fighting against her will, perhaps? Even so, he didn't know what the ninja wanted, either.

"You're a…scrapped number…" the ninja said slowly. Harry couldn't tell if the translation charm garbled the ninja's voice, but it was just as androgynous as he or she looked. Either way, there was hesitation there. Did neither of them really want to fight?

Harry's observations were cut off by another person charging toward him at high speed. He looked up just in time to see yet another enormously buxom woman in strange and revealing clothing jump over the two combatants. "Kagari? What are you—oh! Kagari doesn't wear a mask! Sorry, I mistook you for someone else. Bye!"

And just like that, the newcomer took off in the same direction as Yomi. Harry stared after her, jaw slackened and brows furrowed. _What. The. F—_

Just then Akitsu launched a barrage of icicles, catching the ninja, who had apparently been thinking the same thing as Harry, off-guard. True to Harry's estimation of the person's occupation, the ninja moved faster than anybody he'd ever seen. Not only that, but fireballs flew fast and true from the black blur, only to be alternately blocked or dodged by the surprisingly nimble Akitsu. _And that dress must be glued to her skin,_ Harry thought at the way she managed to retain what modesty it afforded her.

_Weakness,_ Tom replied automatically, as he usually did when Harry brought up anything remotely sexual. Tom grew up in a more conservative time, but he took prudishness to a whole new level. Harry would not ask if the man had been gay though. Not again.

A jolt of pain almost made him too slow to dodge a stray icicle from Akitsu.

After that near miss, Harry flew a little higher in order to give himself more reaction time. The two combatants continued to conjure fire and ice in various shapes and forms and launch it at each other. They might be doing so at a rate that would quickly overwhelm any wizard—Tom mentally scoffed in disagreement—but it was…primitive. Simple. Whatever these people were, their powers were tremendously limited in versatility, though not in strength.

Fiendfyre _would destroy them both,_ Tom sniffed. _And even the lowest of fools can use that._

_But where's the finesse in that?_ Harry asked, smiling despite the two people below him apparently fighting for their lives. That thought brought Harry up short. _They are not fighting seriously,_ he realized. _The ninja doesn't want to kill Akitsu because she's some kind of slave, and Akitsu's apparent orders are only to occupy the ninja._ Upon that realization, he chanced looking away for a few moments, trying to see what kind of response the authorities would make.

The ruins of what appeared to be a _tank_ was a bad sign, though. Perhaps that had been the response.

_Their magic is internal,_ Tom said in surprise, ignoring Harry's previous thoughts. Of course he would not care about the fighters' motivations. Further, Harry could tell that comment was not particularly meant for him. Even after being linked for decades, they both often thought 'out loud' by mistake, and Harry just had a sense about it now.

Not that he would be able to respond anyway. Whatever Tom saw, Harry didn't. That was not terribly surprising, given the difference in years of experience, but it happened seldom enough anymore that it frustrated him just that much more. Harry had been all over world, searching out new magics. He had seen more than his share of incredible things, including incredibly odd things, like the shamans in Arizona that could only do magic after chewing a few buttons of fresh peyote. Harry steadfastly refused to remember trying it himself, instead letting his mind flit over his travels elsewhere, trying to find anything that might give him a hint.

Nothing. He had never seen anything like this. After several moments of examining the two fighters in vain, Harry quietly exhaled in defeat. _What do you mean? How can you tell?_

Tom ignored him.

_Bastard._

What did it even mean that their magic was internal? They had some kind of…magical core? The term sounded odd in his mind; the very idea was preposterous. Perhaps their magic was limited in more than just versatility…perhaps it was limited in the literal sense as well. Harry shook his head, having trouble wrapping his mind around such a concept. Magic was magic. It hung thicker in certain places like Hogwarts and Azkaban than in others, but it was always there for wizards to shape and direct.

But these people…if their magic was internal, they would…run out of it? It must replenish somehow, but apparently not fast enough to keep up with them. Harry looked again, and mentally compared their attacks with those at the beginning of the battle. They were getting weaker, but that was to be expected with physical exertion. Magic becomes more difficult to perform when the wizard loses concentration, or becomes tired and sloppy.

Then it clicked: they were getting weaker, but they weren't physically slowing down. How in Krishna's blue balls did Tom see that earlier?

_We aren't in India anymore,_ Tom reminded him.

_Damn it, I liked that one,_ Harry opined. _What are some Shinto gods I can curse? Ooh, hey, didn't Japanese Muggles worship dragons and stuff?_

_I cannot adequately describe how little I care about such nonsense,_ Tom said, _I merely brought it up in the apparent vain hope you would stop entirely._

_You got that right,_ Harry replied cheerfully. _Except the part about you not caring. I bet you secretly find me hilarious._

Tom ignored him again, so Harry turned his attention back to Akitsu and the ninja. The well-endowed woman thrust an arm toward the latter, and a spiral of thick-based but spiky-ended icicles launched themselves one after another. Her arm shifted ever so slightly to adjust her aim as the ninja ducked under the first two, dodged the third, melted the fourth, and continued the cycle. If Akitsu had a sense of tactics, she might purposely shoot one wide to throw her opponent off, but she let it fall into a perfectly predictable rhythm. Of course, Akitsu still controlled the flow of battle by maintaining the offensive, while the ninja only counterattacked to buy some time. Time for what, though? Was he or she simply weaker? He, Harry decided, the ninja was a he because Harry was tired of being politically correct.

A brief and distant flash of light in Harry's peripheral vision pulled his eyes toward where Yomi and the other girl took off. The two below had apparently seen it, too, because their battle stopped. Harry glanced back down to see the ninja stood ready to dodge, but Akitsu merely stood straight up and kept her eyes on her opponent. Just as Harry surmised that the woman's task had just ended, a sleek, silver, high-end sedan screeched to a halt just in front of her and the door popped open.

Harry dropped back down to hear.

"That's enough Akitsu," a high-pitched male voice said from the backseat. Despite trying to sound refined, Harry thought he sounded petulant and annoyed. "Let's go."

"Wait!" The ninja called. "What are you doing with this scrapped number? Wait!"

In reply the door slammed and the car zoomed away. Harry glanced down and saw the ninja lock his fingers behind his head and take a few deep breaths to cool down.

_Now is your chance,_ Tom said. _Stun him and we'll run some tests._

Harry mentally scoffed at the idea, and then the decision was taken away when the ninja leapt away, heading north. Harry then turned and took off after the car.

_What are you doing?_ Tom asked hotly. _Don't you see how useful this could be? Think of the possibilities!_

Harry could feel Tom's mind churning through those possibilities far more quickly than Harry could manage. _We have plenty of time to do your testing, and we can do it in a way that we can be sure won't get us in trouble,_ Harry said. _What I want to know is where the hell the Japanese wizards are, and why they let this happen. They might not have noticed me up here while they were fighting, but without that distraction, the ninja might notice if I try to follow him._

Just as he thought this, a helicopter chopped its way well above his head, going right toward the unnatural forest.

Tom silently chewed on those thoughts while Harry followed the fancy sedan, which stood out among the smaller vehicles on the road. He occasionally glanced back to see if the ninja or one of those girls were jumping after them, even though the idea would have seemed impossible an hour previous.

Of course, that was magic's specialty: making a misnomer out of impossibilities.

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><p>The flight through the city dragged on for far too long, so Harry, still high enough to be out of earshot of anyone on the ground, sighed loudly in relief when the car turned into a driveway leading to an enormous, sprawling mansion. He wished he could have ridden in the car to get a better sense of the people within, and so he wouldn't have missed the conversation after Akitsu retreated. Though he was anxious to get down to them, he had the presence of mind to drop down as quietly as possible.<p>

It was a good thing, too, because Harry's focus on the car made him miss the platinum blonde-haired woman rushing out to meet the car. The silvery brightness of both her hair and her dress—if one could call a few strips of cloth that left such large portions of her chest and stomach exposed could be called such a thing—gave testament to just how distracted Harry must have been. "Master Mikogami," she called once the car came to a halt, causing Harry's face to darken. He knew something of Japanese honorifics, so he hoped that particular translation was a quirk of the charm.

"Master Mikogami!" She called again as the car door opened and Akitsu stepped out. She looked no worse for after her battle with the ninja—indeed, she looked as though she hadn't exerted any effort at all. Then Harry got his first glimpse of this Mikogami character as he stepped out next and began stalking toward the house. Rich white clothing trimmed in gold clung tightly to his reedy frame, once again making Harry mentally shake his head at what passed for Japanese fashion these days. Maybe he was getting too old.

The driver door opened and a tall, thin man with light hair and dark clothing except for a bright orange scarf stepped out, clutching a long Japanese-style sword decorated with purple and black. _Powerful,_ Harry thought immediately, though he couldn't say why. It wasn't merely the presence of the sword, though the man looked like he knew how to use it.

"What happened?" asked the girl from the mansion, her voice growing concerned. After another moment passed without anyone else emerging from the vehicle. "Where's Yomi?"

The boy paused in his stalking to snap at her. "All she had to do was bring me the green girl, that's it, but now I'm down one Sekirei! I don't want to hear anybody speak of that useless thing ever again!"

As the two other people from the car walked past, the girl in the silvery dress gasped and dropped to her knees, holding both hands to her mouth. "Oh no…"

Harry felt a flash of indignation at the spoiled brat's words, but so many things were unclear, anger was overtaken by confusion. _Sekirei?_ Harry thought. The translation charm didn't translate the word, which meant it was important somehow. _He called it a thing...did that mean they were not human?_

_She's alone,_ Tom said, ignoring Harry's previous thoughts.

_I am not kidnapping that woman, not while she—_ Harry began, but then switched his tack mid-thought when he realized Tom wouldn't care about how she felt. _Not while I know so little about them. I don't even know if magic works against them!_

Harry could feel his passenger mentally grumbling. Neither of them were used to such uncertainty when it came to sizing up a potential opponent. Powerful wizards had a certain aura about them…nothing visible or tangible or even quantifiable, but simply the way they carried themselves, the way they reacted to others…sort of like the man who had stepped out of the car with the sword. Some kind of instinct, some extra sense with no name just seemed to warn Harry when someone like that was around.

_Just your well-earned lack of confidence,_ Tom said.

Tom obviously didn't have that instinct.

Harry watched the girl a few moments more, but the soft sobbing from the woman in silver made him turn away. Did she really care about Yomi that much? Harry only saw her for a few seconds and hadn't interacted with him at all, but she hadn't left a very good impression on him.

"Taki! Get in here!" The boy yelled just as his group were about to enter the mansion. Something about the way Akitsu spoke and carried herself made Harry want to follow, but he was fairly well convinced that these people would not be happy to let a strange traveler into the house. And he imagined having that same stranger sneak in invisibly would be even less welcome…assuming they managed to detect him somehow.

As the despondent Taki stood and hurried toward the mansion, Harry reluctantly pulled up on his Firebolt X, slowly lifting himself up to the safety of the sky. There was one other lead he could follow that might not land him in a heap of trouble. The mental image of an androgynous, white-haired, black-clad ninja evoked a resigned sigh from his mental passenger.

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><p><strong>AN:**

I looked up tantra on Wikipedia and read a couple sections. My apologies for the mistakes I'm sure are there.

Sekirei literally means "wagtail" (apparently), but I'm going to wave my wand and pretend that this imaginary translation charm understands context. There are other ways to handle it, I suppose, but it's a sufficiently unimportant detail to the plot that you shouldn't think about it too much. One thing it does afford me is the opportunity to avoid Japanese honorifics along with the other "usual" tropes I addressed in the preface that usually come with anime/manga fanfiction. I know there are a subset of readers who don't like that stuff, and hopefully it doesn't turn off normal anime fic readers either.

I actually started to write this story with a more powerful Harry, but I wanted to differentiate from every other Sekirei crossover I've read so far by actually giving the main character a challenge.

I also originally started to write it such that Harry followed Yomi, but in Sekirei canon, there were already too many Sekireis over there (including Hikari and Hibiki) to justify Harry's presence. This way we get to avoid rehashing canon (and, again, pretty much every other HP/Sekirei crossover) a bit more.

Lastly, bonus points if you predict the link between this story and another one of mine.


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